Ole Miss basketball has ‘two elite scorers’ but what else offensively?
Ole Miss basketball has nearly exhausted its 10 allotted summer practices.
The Rebels were at four a week ago Monday, and they’ll finish out in the coming days before embarking on their foreign tour to The Bahamas starting July 31. Ole Miss is scheduled to play several games against local teams in Nassau and Atlantis through August 5.
The questions surrounding the fifth iteration of head coach Kermit Davis’ Rebels are plentiful. Chief among them is where the scoring is going to come from outside of the exciting, and potentially dynamic, back-court duo of Daeshun Ruffin and Matthew Murrell.
“Hopefully we’re going to create offense through our defense and we’re going to be able to push it up in transition to get easy baskets,” Davis said, in an interview with the Rebel Yell Hotline, in association with the Ole Miss Spirit.
“I think that’s the whole key. In SEC play, the more cheap baskets you can get, the better your team will be. But eventually these games are going to get into the half-court. You’ve got to run good half-court offense.”
Three SEC teams (Alabama, Kentucky and Auburn) finished in the Top 25 in scoring offense last season.
The league also had three (Alabama, Vanderbilt and Florida) in the Top 25 in three-point field goals attempted. Ole Miss was No. 252 and No. 194, respectively, in both categories. The Rebels finished 13-19 and missed the postseason entirely.
The overall offensive numbers elsewhere weren’t much better. Put simply, Ole Miss struggled to put the ball in basket consistently, and despite adding eight newcomers, including four transfers, Ole Miss didn’t neccesarly address, at least on paper, its most glaring issues.
Instead, the Rebels appear to be relying on year-to-year improvement from Ruffin, Murrell, Jaemyn Brakefield and James White, among others, to turn around a program that hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since Davis debuted as head coach in 2018.
Ole Miss improved in the margins.
Namely, the Rebels addressed their porous rebounding and on-ball defense, which have always been priority areas for Davis, regardless of team. The four transfers were all former Defensive Player of the Year winners in their conferences.
“Daeshun and Matt are two of the elite scorers in our league,” Davis said. Ruffin is recovering from an ACL injury and will travel to The Bahamas but not participate.
“Both those guys can really, really score. They’ve proven they can score. Robert Cowherd may be, behind Matt, our best perimeter shooter. He’s the other freshman that doesn’t get talked about a lot.
“We’ve scored around the goal. Jame White is for sure a good scorer. We’ve got some guys that can score. We need to get the floor broken and get some cheap baskets playing quicker in transition.”
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What is Ole Miss really getting, offensively, in its four transfers?
Davis on Jayveous McKinnis (Jackson State): “He’s really an athletic big. We’re trying to get Jay to take a next step in detail and how he plays, but he’s big, strong and athletic. Blocks shots.”
Davis on Myles Burns (Loyola New Orleans): “Myles Burnes has hung his hat on defense, offensive rebounding and playing hard. I think he’ll be really good in our 1-3-1 defense.”
Davis on Theo Akwuba (Louisiana): “Theo is a great kid. Long. He’s 6-11, and he’s gained about 10 pounds. Weighs about 230 right now. He’s a really good low-post scorer. We’ve got to start doing some things even more to get him the ball around there.”
Davis on Josh Mballa (Buffalo): “Josh Mballa, he’s only been here a couple of weeks, but he may be our leading rebounder over the last week and a half of practice. He’s a tough, physical guy who’s trying to find his way offensively.”
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Overall, Ole Miss had the No. 12 ranked recruiting class, according to ESPN.
But whether the Rebels did enough to keep up in a surging SEC featuring some of the most fast-paced offenses in the sport remains to be seen.
Ole Miss was near the bottom of college basketball in pace, and rather than switch up styles and go faster, as Davis said he hoped to do before last season, Davis doubled-down on what’s traditionally worked for him over a long and decorated career.
So far, he likes what he has.
“(The transfers) have got to be able to take a next step of being able to shoot 17-footers, 18-footers, be able to stretch some defenses,” he said.
